Dayton’s No Longer Flying Under the Radar

Kyle Davis of the Dayton Flyers reacts after hitting a shot against the Stanford Cardinal on Friday.

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Some college basketball fans believe that the “Cinderella” concept tarnishes the purpose of producing a competitive program year in, year out—that simply because a lower seed gets hot in March doesn’t mean they’re fit to sniff the air of programs who’ve slugged it out all year, and often the years before that. (Without generalizing, let’s call these “Duke fans.”) Then there are the fans who see a team like Dayton pacing their way to the Elite 8 as a 11 seed and think, “Isn’t this the point?”

With respect to the former group, yes. After battering Stanford in their Thursday night Sweet 16, the Flyers have scored their third straight upset over a power conference team and suddenly vaulted them into a conversation that begins with “Well, why not these guys?” In lieu of star talent, Dayton has adopted a “think deep” philosophy that’s given them multiple players at every position, none of whom average a lot of points but are inserted in a hurry. Take Kendall Pollard, the freshman who came into Thursday averaging 2 points and 8 minutes a game: Against Stanford, he was the second leading scorer with 12 points. “Credit [coach Archie] Miller with refusing to get uptight with his rotation,” writes Yahoo’s Pat Forde. “At this time of year, coaches will bail on a lot of role players, relying on their best guys – and sometimes exhausting them in the process. If anything, Miller is opening it up even more.”

Against Kansas, Stanford could hope to bottle up star Andrew Wiggins and let the struggles trickle down from there. The Flyers, however, were too decentralized for such a strategy. “They got here thanks to a relentless offense predicated on speed, selfess passing (19 assists) and substitution patterns that resemble hockey line changes,” writes Sports Illustrated’s Pete Thamel. “Stanford looked so overwhelmed at times that it wouldn’t have been surprising for coach Johnny Dawkins to try to insert former Stanford defensive back Richard Sherman, who was sitting behind the Cardinal bench. (Or at least consult Condoleezza Rice, who was sitting behind Sherman).” Not that it gets any easier from here: Now, they’ll face a Florida team that’s just reached their fourth consecutive Elite Eight after putting down UCLA, and hasn’t lost since December.

Dayton’s ascendance was exciting, as was Arizona’s last-minute comeback against San Diego State that was spearheaded by Nick Johnson somehow scoring 15 points in the final three minutes of gameplay. But those are relatively new pleasures, whereas Friday will offer a rivalry that’s older than dirt: Louisville vs. Kentucky, Rick Pitino vs. John Calipari, a fight for the heart of Kentucky basketball. Even if the two coaches try to pretend they’re “friends,” no one would believe it for a second. “Did Mike Krzyzewski and Dean Smith break bread often? How about Bobby Bowden and Steve Spurrier, once upon a time? And more to the point, how about Denny Crum and Joe B. Hall?” writes Sports on Earth’s Shaun Powell. “No, certain situations just aren’t conducive to healthy relationships, and this is one of them.” All praise to the perpetual newness of the NCAA tournament, which gives us new uniforms and rabid fans to root for in their quest to bump against the big guns. The more specific traditions are well worth it, too.

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Over the last few years, there’s been a sea change in thinking with regards to whether or not college players should be paid for their participation—participation that often leads to massive financial reward for their schools without a dime seen for the athletes themselves. (Case in point: The Ohio State athletic director who was paid $18,000 extra when one of his wrestlers won the NCAA championship.) How the system will change remains massively undefined, but it seems certain that it will change.

At Northwestern University, the so-called student-athletes are trying to expedite that transition. On Wednesday, National Labor Relations Board regional director Peter Sung Ohr declared that the Northwestern football players are university employees, and thus have the right to unionize. Rather than seeking compensation, the players want to negotiate the conditions of their service—such as rules dictating where they may live and whether they can take off-campus jobs. In making his decision, Ohr claimed that the time that goes into playing football in college counts as employment. But the university has pledged to fight the ruling, arguing that its student-athletes are, well, students. The ensuing legal battle may drag on for years, but it represents a rock thrown in the typically still waters of the status quo. At the New Yorker, Ian Crouch explains the nature of the debate.

“On Wednesday, the N.C.A.A. was quick to emphasize the financial implications of the decision: ‘We frequently hear from student-athletes, across all sports, that they participate to enhance their overall college experience and for the love of their sport, not to be paid.’ This statement is almost obscene in its feigned naïveté, as if major college sports were still just some intramural frolic on the green after dinner,” he writes. “Tell that to the gamblers in Las Vegas—and to the coaches, athletic directors, administrators, and business interests that profit from these games played by supposedly grateful amateurs. The NCAA has a 10-billion-dollar television contract for the men’s basketball tournament. At Northwestern, players sign away rights to their image to the school and to the Big Ten conference. These are examples of the kind of control that employers exert over employees, Ohr argues, and those subject to such control should have the right to bargain.”

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The stereotype of Seattle and Portland is that they’re filled with delicate Northeast types, prone to go on about their startups and their beards and their artisanal pickling companies. It’s a wonder, then, that each city is filled with a rabid soccer fanbase—perhaps the most rabid in all of the United States—and that these fanbases have been tangled in a literally-bloodless-but-figuratively-gory conflict for as long as they know. At SB Nation, Matt Negrin embeds with both sides to see where they’re coming from, venturing to secret Seattle bars in Portland and talking with fans who insist on speaking off the record. (One of them even rips pages out of his notebook.) It’s a gripping read, if only because you’d never think that such a soccer feud could brew in the United States.

“The cities are only a few hours apart from one another, 173 miles, but this isn’t like New York and Boston, where ex-pats openly and loudly advertise their home bar away from home,” he writes. “This is more like Moscow and Washington, circa 1980 — whispers and hideouts across enemy lines. This is cold war [stuff].”

Comments (5 of 5)

"The stereotype of Seattle and Portland is that they’re filled with delicate NORTHEAST type." Indeed, those of us in Asia look down on those in the Pacific NORTHEAST."

Anybody care to guess the location of the directionally-challenged reporter.

1:39 pm March 28, 2014

TomG wrote:

To call their win an upset means you didn't watch the game... an upset is when a superior loses to a less talented team by either playing poorly or by an over-achieving weaker team. That was not the case yesterday... Dayton is the superiorly talented team... their ranking is due to the conference they play in not the players that play

1:06 pm March 28, 2014

John UD Alum wrote:

My days at Dayton are a cherished memory.......some of the best days of my life. Go Flyers

1:06 pm March 28, 2014

Chris wrote:

Dayton is in the Atlantic 10 not some conference full of no name teams like Wichita St. While they are a high seed and were the last team from that conference to be picked for the tournament, they have faced strong competition all year. I'm certainly not surprised to see them beat any of the teams they have played so far. Beating Florida though is just not likely to happen but who knows?.

12:26 pm March 28, 2014

Michael Bornhorst wrote:

As a University of Dayton Banner in the ghetto read "Stanford was my Safety School"...well put.

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